“Elitist jerks and hypocrites” at Harley-Davidson, and different manufacturers akin to Bud Mild, are chargeable for the woke-inflicted meltdown marquee American corporations have suffered in recent times, an entrepreneur within the trenches of the company tradition wars tells Fox New Digital.
“It is Enterprise 101. You don’t disrespect your core shoppers and also you actually don’t alienate and abandon them within the search to develop and increase elsewhere,” mentioned Jennifer Sey, a former senior advertising and marketing govt for Levi Strauss & Co.
Harley-Davidson’s German-born CEO and board chairman, Jochen Zeitz, has been lambasted by long-time loyal prospects for trying to remake the bike’s muscular American picture, accused by critics of using a progressive agenda that clashes with the values of its most devoted prospects.
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“We try to tackle conventional capitalism and attempting to redefine it,” Zeitz mentioned whereas chatting with world leaders at a convention in Switzerland in 2020, the identical 12 months he took the helm of Harley.
Zeitz, in the identical speech, in contrast himself to the Taliban to precise his devotion to “sustainability.”
Jennifer Sey, a former senior govt at Levi Strauss & Co., clashed with executives over COVID lockdowns in 2020. She launched XX-XY Athletics in March 2024. (XX-XY Athletics)
Simmering discontent amongst Harley-Davidson’s loyal prospects exploded in open riot towards the model after Zeitz’s inner agenda was outed by company watchdog Robby Starbuck on X.
“They killed Harley. It breaks my coronary heart,” Vinny Terranova, the proprietor of Pappy’s Classic Cycles in Sturgis, South Dakota, and former Harley-Davidson dealership proprietor, instructed Fox Information Digital.
“It is ‘Enterprise 101.’ You don’t disrespect your core shoppers.”
Sey, the previous Levi’s govt, witnessed the company tradition wars from the trenches of the boardroom battlefield. She was a C-suite superstar in 2020, charged with managing, sharpening and rising the enduring Levi’s model. Based by German immigrant Levi Strauss in San Francisco in 1853, Levi’s denims have loved world status as an emblem of American tradition and alternative.
Jochen Zeitz, president, CEO and chairman of the board of Harley-Davidson, attends the beginning of buying and selling of electrical bike spinoff Livewire on the ground of the New York Inventory Trade (NYSE) in New York Metropolis, U.S., September 27, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)
However then the “lifelong Democrat” was shaken out of her company consolation when she opposed the town’s, the state of California’s, and her personal employer’s onerous responses to COVID-19.
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“I used to be a frontrunner locally and I used to be simply vilified for talking out towards faculty closings,” Sey mentioned. “I used to be demonized as a result of I cared about retaining colleges open. I imply, it turned an unlivable place for me.”
Sey was pressured out after a 23-year profession at Levi’s in 2022.
“San Francisco is probably the most aggressively conformist place you may fathom,” she mentioned. “It’s not inclusive. It’s not logical. And it’s not progressive.”
“Canceled,” she claims, by company America, she was unable to land an executive-level place that mirrored her sterling credentials.
Sey relocated to Colorado and launched XX-XY Athletics, a efficiency attire firm, in March.
She’s now a warrior towards wokeism. The identify of her firm is itself an act of defiance towards the notion that womanhood exists on a spectrum of types.
“The elites undertake all these loopy far-left positions to assuage their guilt about having tons of cash and privilege.”
“The message is that there’s empirical reality. Biology is true,” Sey mentioned. “It’s quite simple, really. There may be XX and there’s XY. We will corrupt the reality with language all we would like. However on the finish of the day the reality is that intercourse is binary.”
The corruption of long-held truths and the embrace of radical ideology that drove her out of Levi’s, and has pushed prospects away from Harley-Davidson, Bud Mild, and different revered American manufacturers, is the product of many elements, she believes.
“The elites undertake all these loopy far-left positions to assuage their guilt about having tons of cash and privilege,” she mentioned.
Jennifer Sey was the U.S. nationwide champion in all-around gymnastics in 1986. She competed within the Goodwill Video games in Moscow the identical 12 months. (XX-XY Athletics/Jennifer Sey)
Company executives dedicate lip service to public schooling, for instance, “however all of them ship their youngsters to $60,000-a-year non-public colleges.”
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“The opposite factor is that these corporations are actually populated by Gen Z workers from a woke schooling system and from woke universities who have been raised in protected areas and need you to know their pronouns,” she added.
Executives concern operating afoul of the encompassing mob, inciting their social-media outrage, and jeopardizing the wealth, privilege and perks they faux to reject.
“The inmates are operating the asylum” in company America, mentioned Sey.
A purple white and blue Harley Davidson bike in Chicago, Illinois (Picture by: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Common Pictures Group by way of Getty Pictures) (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Common Pictures Group by way of Getty Pictures)
Her profession contained in the “woke bubble” of high-powered company tradition and present battles towards it give Sey distinctive perception on Harley-Davidson’s current issues.
Harley CEO Zeitz rose to world prominence turning low cost Puma sneakers into a world vogue model, socialized with the wealthy and the well-known, launched a crusing race staff, opened an artwork museum in his identify in South Africa and counted the likes of Richard Branson amongst his social circle.
Critics charged he had little in frequent with Harley-Davidson prospects and apparently didn’t perceive the important thing to the worldwide enchantment of the bike model: it is American-ness.
Levi’s has loved the identical world status.
Jennifer Sey based XX-XY Athletics in March 2024. The message of the identify of the model “is that there’s empirical reality. Biology is true,” she mentioned. (XX-XY Athletics)
“What individuals discover worthwhile about these manufacturers is that they signify the perfect of American values,” Sey mentioned. “They represented freedom, individualism, progress and democracy.”
Harley-Davidson, she believes, represented “rugged masculinity and individualism, dwelling by yourself phrases.”
Sey skilled the facility of American manufacturers whereas competing on the world stage in gymnastics on the Goodwill Video games in Moscow in 1986.
She purchased 20 pairs of denims at Macy’s and introduced them together with her to commerce with Soviet and different international athletes. Levi’s basic 501 denims might internet as much as $1,000 per pair on the Moscow black market within the Nineteen Eighties, she mentioned.
“Levi’s denims signify freedom and progress,” she mentioned.
The “progressive” politics of as we speak are progress in identify solely, she mentioned.
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“What they name progressive is definitely extremely retrograde,” she mentioned. “It is pushed by elitist hypocrites. I am unable to even stand to be round them anymore.”
